Pause for reflection

Friday

Dec 30, 2011 at 12:01 AMDec 31, 2011 at 12:15 AM

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Eight months have elapsed since Luke Fickell was thrust into the head coaching job at Ohio State. He can't decide whether his one-season tenure felt like an instant or an eternity.

Bill Rabinowitz, The Columbus Dispatch

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Eight months have elapsed since Luke Fickell was thrust into the head-coaching job at Ohio State. He can't decide whether his one-season tenure felt like an instant or an eternity.

"It has gone really fast, and it has gone really slow at times, too," Fickell said. "I don't know how it can be like that."

Today's Gator Bowl against Florida will be Fickell's last game in charge of the Buckeyes before returning to being an assistant under new coach Urban Meyer.

His time as coach was both an unbelievable opportunity and a thankless trespass through a minefield. He took over at 37 years old despite having no prior head-coaching experience, almost unheard of for a program like Ohio State's. But he also had to navigate his team through a time of scandal and suspensions both known and unforeseen.

The Buckeyes finished with a 6-6 record, their worst since 1999. With an unflinching lack of self-pity for himself or his players, Fickell also held a team together that easily could have fractured under such trying circumstances. Both are his legacy.

At 11 p.m. on May 29, Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith called Fickell and told him to arrange a staff meeting for the next morning. Smith did not inform him that he had asked Jim Tressel to resign because of NCAA violations.

Fickell lay awake all night, wondering about all the possibilities. He figured Smith wanted to strategize about the upcoming Sports Illustrated story about OSU that was rumored to be a bombshell (though it mostly fizzled).

Fickell had long believed that Tressel would be the first Ohio State coach since Paul Brown during World War II to set his own terms on when and how he would leave. He couldn't quite accept the notion that Tressel might be forced out, let alone that he might be asked to succeed him.

At 8 a.m. on May 30, Smith told Fickell that was exactly what would happen.

"We sat there and talked for 10 to 15 minutes and we went straight from my office to the staff (meeting)," Fickell said. "There was nothing you could do but stand up and be confident in what you're doing and take some leadership."

Fickell waited two weeks before moving into the head coach's office. He went in late one night and rearranged the desk to make it feel as if he finally belonged in that room.

The season was filled with pitfalls. Fickell took over the program too late to make wholesale staff changes. The departure of quarterback Terrelle Pryor soon afterward meant that the Buckeyes would have to use an inexperienced quarterback.

Additional players were suspended shortly before the season opener, and some suspensions issued the previous December were extended before the Nebraska game.

Such issues would have tested even a seasoned head coach. All Fickell could do was rely on his staff and players and trust his own judgment.

He said he did not speak with Tressel after visiting him in person the night he took over the job, other than asking the former coach in a text message to speak to the team before the Michigan game.

As for what changes he might have made, Fickell preferred to keep that private.

"I don't know if you can pinpoint or want to talk about the things you'd do differently," he said.

The quarterback issue was a quandary, but Fickell said the decision to start fifth-year senior Joe Bauserman over freshman Braxton Miller in the opener wasn't that difficult.

"To be honest, Joe Bauserman had a great camp and Braxton probably showed his youth," Fickell said. "We saw a little different Braxton when he was thrust in the starting role. During camp, it wasn't that close."

Fickell said he was determined to put the program's long-term interests over his own self-preservation. Miller was made the starter for the Colorado game, even knowing that freshman mistakes could cost the Buckeyes. Despite plenty of growing pains, which were exacerbated by a green receiving corps, Miller made significant progress as the season went along.

When the Buckeyes rebounded from disheartening losses to Michigan State and Nebraska to defeat unbeaten Illinois on Oct.15, Fickell thought his team had turned the corner.

But a dramatic victory over Wisconsin and lackluster win over Indiana were followed by three losses to end the season, starting with an overtime defeat at Purdue after a blocked extra-point kick cost the Buckeyes at the end of regulation.

"I kind of had a feeling that all the turmoil would cost us in the end," Fickell said. "…The emotions that we knew were being taken out throughout the year with all the different stuff probably cost us more than we (realized)."

The late-season defeats cost Fickell any chance to keep the job. He learned his fate the Wednesday before the Michigan game. While the men's basketball team was playing VMI, Smith and Fickell met in the women's locker room at Value City Arena. There, Fickell heard the "We're going in a different direction" words that every coach dreads.

Fickell kept the news to himself. He didn't even tell his wife, Amy, until they had arrived home from the Michigan loss.

"It wasn't good," Fickell said, recalling that day. "I thought I was going to tell her on the ride home, but it didn't happen."

Fickell credits Amy and their four young children for allowing him to keep whatever semblance of perspective a coach can maintain.

"It was unbelievable," Fickell said of Amy's support. "You can't do this by yourself. You find out who your real (allies) are, and it starts at home."

Fickell also credited his coaching staff and players for avoiding the finger-pointing that often accompanies a disappointing season.

He hurts for the assistant coaches who won't be retained by the new regime. For a few days, it looked as if Fickell might leave as well. He interviewed for the University of Pittsburgh job that ultimately went to Wisconsin offensive coordinator Paul Chryst.

Fickell doesn't believe the transition back to being an assistant will be difficult.

"I don't have an ego," he said. "It doesn't bother me. To me, it would be harder to go someplace else.

"When I took the (job in May), I told my wife that if this doesn't work out it's going to be hard to stay here. So in the grand scheme of things, I guess it is a perfect situation."

But Fickell would like to be a head coach again, even if he knows he might have to leave Columbus to do so. It's one thing to think you can be a head coach. It's another to experience it.

"I realize I have a lot of confidence in being able to do this," he said. "Sometimes when you go into it, you stand up there and stand tall and then you go home at night and you're like, 'Oh my goodness, I don't know. I don't know if I'm failing. I don't know if I'm doing a good job. I don't think I'm doing a very good job.'

"Sometimes it's just (based) on the wins and losses. But then you start evaluating and you say, 'Yeah, you know what, maybe I should have done something here or there, but you can do this. It grows on you, and you want to do it."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.